(UCAN): Myanmar’s ruling military junta has brutally attacked and killed scores of children caught in the crossfire of conflict as well as being targeted for violence in the beleaguered country, according to a United Nations report.
“The junta’s relentless attacks on children underscore the generals’ depravity and willingness to inflict immense suffering on innocent victims in its attempt to subjugate the people of Myanmar,” Tom Andrews, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said on June 13.
Andrews said it was clear from the evidence that children in Myanmar were not only getting caught in the crossfire of escalating attacks but are also often the targets of violence.
“I received information about children who were beaten, stabbed, burned with cigarettes, subjected to mock executions and had their fingernails and teeth pulled out during lengthy interrogation sessions,” he said.
The junta’s relentless attacks on children underscore the generals’ depravity and willingness to inflict immense suffering on innocent victims in its attempt to subjugate the people of Myanmar
Tom Andrews
The rights expert said that the junta’s attacks on children constitute “crimes against humanity and war crimes” and called for junta leader, Min Aung Hlaing, and other architects of the violence to be “held accountable for their crimes against children.”
Soldiers, police officers and military-backed militias have murdered, abducted, detained and tortured children in a campaign of violence that has touched every corner of the country, according to the report.
It said that over the past 16 months the military has killed at least 142 children in Myanmar and over 250,000 children have been displaced by the military’s attacks and over 1,400 have been arbitrarily detained. At least 61 children, including several under three years of age, are reportedly being held as hostages.
Andrews has urged UN member states to work in coordination to alleviate the suffering of children by systematically increasing pressure on the junta.
What we are witnessing today is the systematic and widespread use of tactics against civilians, in respect of which there are reasonable grounds to believe the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes
Michelle Bachelet
“World leaders, diplomats and donors should ask themselves why the world is failing to do all that can reasonably be done to bring an end to the suffering of the children of Myanmar,” he said.
The report came on the same day that United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, decried the dire situation in Myanmar where the people remain “trapped in a cycle of poverty and displacement, human rights violations and abuses.”
Bachelet told the Human Rights Council on June 14, “What we are witnessing today is the systematic and widespread use of tactics against civilians, in respect of which there are reasonable grounds to believe the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes.”
Since last years’ coup, at least 1,900 killings by the military have been reported, the UN has registered one million internally displaced persons, and some 14 million remain in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, according to Bachelet.
She called for support in pursuing accountability for ongoing and past human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
